U.S. News | Blind

Accessibility programming at U.S. museums extends appreciation of the visual arts to blind individuals

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and other major art museums offer programming allowing visitors to touch selected works or work replicas.

Such programming allows for the more individualized aesthetic appreciation enjoyed by those without visual impairment, and in museums where tactile engagement is forbidden, specialized tours offer detailed descriptions of works to visitors.

Museum professionals note the growth in accessibility programming since the 1970s, with the introduction of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1980 spurring cultural institutions to work to create inclusive experiences across the ability spectrum.

“I don’t think it’s red tape-wise such a difficult thing to do. … And you can certainly use the argument, ‘Look at all these other museums.’ … I think that the institutions that don’t have something in place are scrambling because they’re thinking, ‘Here we are 25 years [after the ADA], we’d better get going on this.’ ”

Outlas Outreach

The Ongoing Insecurity of LGBT Ghanaians

A relatively stable constitutional democracy, Ghana has seen the beginnings of official outreach to its LGBT citizens in recent years as it has signed on to pro-LGBT international accords and treaties, but new research from Human Rights Watch (HRW) reveals ongoing persecution and gender-based vulnerabilities. Though rarely enforced, a law criminalizing same-sex relations that emerged from the country’s colonial legacy has led to the political and corporal endangerment of LGBT Ghanaians, exposing them to intimidation, violence, fears of public exposure, and little to no recourse to law enforcement protection. Lesbians, bisexual women, and trans men have faced especially high levels of violence and labor precarity, and anti–domestic violence laws have done little to protect them given the lack of trust in the legal system. In response, HRW conducted interviews with LGBT Ghanaians to track insecurity across a range of social, legal, and economic domains and issued a set of recommendations to improve protections for the community.